


because he actually asked her out

by santiagoswagger



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eventual Jake/Amy, F/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:20:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14765966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/santiagoswagger/pseuds/santiagoswagger
Summary: Amy and Jake have been dancing around a relationship with each other for months now, occasionally getting close to a resolution before something inevitably stops them from moving forward. So, when Det. Dave Majors asks her out, Amy decides she owes it to herself, and Jake, to move on.AU - how the end of Season 2 would play out if Amy started dating Dave at the end ofDet. Dave Majors.





	because he actually asked her out

“Do you want to go out with me sometime?”

Whatever Amy had expected him to say, that certainly wasn’t it. She quickly tried to drown out the cacophony of sounds that flooded the crowded bar in order to make sense of what she wasn’t entirely convinced she’d heard correctly. She had been so caught up in impressing her literal idol on the force and proving she was better at her job than Jake for the last few days that she hadn’t picked up on the glaring signs Dave had been sending her way: he’d made a big show of buying her a drink, he’d spent most of the evening asking her thoughtful questions about her life and career, and he’d laughed at her terrible, corny puns – no one ever did, except for Gina that one time in a briefing but Amy was pretty sure that had more to do with the piece of spinach stuck between her teeth. Damn it, she was _not_ a good detective. 

Did she even want to go out with Dave? She admired him, sure, but professional respect wasn’t exactly the gateway to an epic romance. Plus, he was _another_ cop; after her relationship with Teddy spectacularly imploded on the Road Trip from Hell, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to put herself through the trauma of another disastrous dating experience with a fellow officer. On the other hand, he was smart and wildly successful (he was getting a medal from the _commissioner_ in the morning, for crying out loud) and she was pretty sure he wasn’t the kind of guy who wore mesh underwear. He was a real, live grown-up who shared her interests but was more exciting than Teddy on his best day – he was everything Amy had ever wanted in a partner, and more. Or, at least what she thought she wanted. 

Her thoughts veered, as they often did lately, to Jake. They had been circling each other for the last year or so, occasionally getting close to a satisfying resolution, but they just couldn’t reach a détente. Their feelings were finally out in the open but they were stuck in a frustrating holding pattern, each afraid to make the first move and put themselves, and their friendship, on the line for the possibility of something more. 

There had been a time after Gina and Boyle’s parents wedding that she thought he might ask her out but their moment had come and gone weeks ago without so much as an accidental finger brush from Jake. She was beginning to think that she had completely imagined their romantic moment at the wedding, that maybe she had been so caught up in the sentimentality of the day and how great of a partner he had been to her that she had conjured their lingering glance across the dance floor out of thin air. But it was all sex tape jokes and office supply pranks from Jake afterward – business as usual. 

Amy was firmly of the belief that the ball was in Jake’s court since her feelings were revealed last and he was more freshly single, but he had yet to give her any sort of sign that he was ready. She knew there was something deeper to his hesitation, that he was still pretty torn up about his break-up with Sophia. Amy wasn’t sure how Jake even felt about her anymore, she wasn’t even sure she knew how _she_ felt. 

Did she even want him to ask her out? If they started dating and things didn’t work out, it was sure to be a disaster – Jake was less than mature with her on his best day, and that was without putting sex on the table. No, they were better off as friends, as professionals. Dating a coworker, especially one whose friendship she had come to value so considerably, would just be messy and messes made Amy’s skin itch. She owed it to herself, and Jake, to move on.

Amy got out of her own head and plastered a smile on her face, shooting it in Dave’s direction. Tucking her hair behind both ears, she nodded and said, “Yes, I’d love to.” She didn’t see Jake being hauled away by the The Key Chain’s bouncer in the far corner of the room. 

Dave smiled, the right side of his mouth quirking up in a rare show of emotion for his typically stoic face. He silently signaled a passing bartender to bring them another round of drinks and sometime came sooner than Amy had anticipated. 

The rest of the night was surprisingly fun. For as cool and impressive as Dave was, he was also funny and full of amazing stories to tell, both cop-related and not. It was a relief to Amy, who had been on more horrendous first dates than she cared to admit; she still had recurring nightmares about her aunt’s creepy dentist. Dave even gave her some helpful advice on a few of her open cases, which put her cop-dating anxiety to bed for a little while at least. 

When they had each finished their third whiskey of the evening, Amy decided it was time to go home – it _was_ a work night after all. Dave hailed her a cab and said goodbye with a warm hug and the promise of a date to the Brooklyn Museum that weekend (suggested by Dave after Amy had briefly mentioned it was her favorite museum in the city.) She spent the whole cab ride home convincing herself that the seed of dread embedding itself firmly in her stomach was the result of drinking too much whiskey on a weeknight. 

The next morning at work, Amy ducked underneath the window in the break room the minute she saw Dave step out of the precinct elevator. She mentally berated herself as she poured an unnecessary cup of coffee, covertly watching him through the window with one eye. She was a grown woman; she should be able to handle seeing her date the morning after. They hadn’t even kissed! Instead of greeting him like a well-adjusted adult with the license and ability to responsibly operate a firearm, she watched through the blinds as Dave spoke with Jake, presumably to tie up the loose ends of their joint case. As she watched them talk, Amy was surprised to see Jake’s perpetually goofy, adorably self-assured face fall into something sad, dejected even, before he quickly rearranged his expression back to its standard amount of self-satisfaction. 

The shift was so brief that anyone else might not have noticed, but Amy sat across from that face every single day and she knew its full range of emotion. She hated to admit that she knew him better than she knew herself most of the time. He had been much more careful with his words around her lately, definitely not his typical carefree self. He was also hitting his questionable Mexican candy pretty hard and she was beginning to get concerned that he was giving himself nerve damage again. His breakup with Sophia must have _really_ done a number on him. 

Dave and Jake’s brief conversation ended and Amy ducked her head behind the coffee maker to avoid making eye contact with Dave as he left the bullpen. She was still hiding when Jake quietly entered the break room and cleared his throat. Amy had been watching Dave at the elevator, having silently decided to move from her hiding spot only when the elevator doors shut behind him and it was safe to return to her desk. Jake’s quiet cough was jarring enough to force Amy to shoot up from her crouched position like she had sat on something sharp. 

He chuckled quietly as she realized it was him and began smoothing out her now-rumpled pantsuit, rolling her eyes at him as she smoothed the creases in her blouse. The old Jake Peralta would have snorted and made some loud, obnoxious comment about Amy’s obvious paranoia to the entire bullpen; post-Sophia Jake just waited for Amy to finish gathering herself quietly with a small smile. Amy wished she could have the old Jake back, a day she truly never thought would come. 

“So, I just talked to Detective Blotter Dynamite,” Jake said. “I guess congrats are in order?” 

He sounded upbeat, but Amy suspected that his over-the-top kindness was masking some bitterness. Throughout the whole case, Jake had been a little off around Dave, despite idolizing him in their briefing beforehand and competing with her the entire time for Dave’s attention. She had initially chalked it up to professional jealousy but now she wasn’t so sure. Jake usually wore his heart on his sleeve, but Amy was having a hard time reading him. 

She scoffed kindly. “I don’t know that one date with a guy warrants any congratulations, but thank you.” She smiled at him, and he returned it. 

Jake let his smile fall and he stared at her for a moment, his expression inscrutable, but his jaw was clenched tightly like he was fighting an internal battle. It felt like an eternity, just the two of them quietly looking at one another, but in reality, it was probably only a few seconds. 

“Just don’t tell him any of your adult math camp stories. Seriously, Santiago, that’s a fifth date topic at _best_.” The old Jake made a triumphant return, and he left the room laughing at his own joke, high-fiving Charles on his way out. 

Amy watched him walk back to their desk pod through the blind-covered windows. She smiled to herself and tucked her hair behind both ears before she gathered her coffee and followed his lead, ignoring the sudden wrench in her heart. 

Jake let the forced smile slip from his face as he sat down at his desk and pretended to look at through the messy mountain of paperwork that crowded his work station. He couldn’t believe he had missed his chance with Amy _again_. 

He had slowly but surely been coming around to the idea that his feelings for her were real and different – and maybe, _possibly_ life-changing – and now his window was closed. She was dating Dave: the stupid, perfect, coolest detective in the NYPD. Dave was everything Jake wanted to be and more, and that was before he had the nerve to ask out the girl of Jake’s dreams. He had even been polite enough to thank Jake for introducing him to Amy in the first place, not ten minutes ago. Jake had wanted to punch him in his handsome, chiseled jaw. Objectively, he knew his current conundrum wasn’t Dave’s fault – he put himself out there and was rewarded with Amy’s yes – but Jake couldn’t help but blindly hate him anyway. 

He thought back to what Rosa had told him the day before (“You’ve got to let her know that you are an option.”) and kicked himself for not getting inside The Key Chain fast enough to stop his own demise. Seeing Amy do the double tuck for someone else crushed him more than he would ever admit out loud. 

What was worse than Amy dating someone else were all the _what ifs_ he was left with in the aftermath. Did she really like Dave, or did she agree to go out with him simply because he asked? What would have happened if Jake had summoned the courage to ask her first? Did Amy saying yes to Dave mean that her feelings for Jake were gone? The thoughts made his head spin faster than the merry-go-round his mom used to ride with him at Coney Island every time his dad left. Jake had to believe (hope) that she was at least torn in her decision to say yes to Dave, given all the romantic vibes she had been sending his way since Charles and Gina’s parents’ wedding. 

Jake watched Amy settle back in at her desk out of the corner of his eye, still pretending to look at his paperwork. He saw her covertly watching him too, studying him. He felt a flutter in the pit of his stomach, cursing his dumb heart for daring to feel anything at all. His doomed relationship with Sophia had proven to him that rejection would continue to follow him around for the rest of his life. Jake wasn’t a psychologist but he was pretty sure that if he hadn’t been dumped immediately after confessing his love, he wouldn’t have had such a huge problem putting himself on the line for Amy. 

Throughout the rest of the day, Jake tried his hardest not to make eye contact with Amy over their desks, which was difficult because she was constantly in his line of sight. On the rare occasion he let his eyes drift to her, she smiled at him like it was nothing, not knowing it turned his stomach upside down every time. 

When the clock struck five, Jake began gathering his things to go home for the weekend. Across from him, Amy did the same. 

“Big plans for the weekend, Santiago?”, he said as he picked up his messenger bag, making sure his secret gummy worm stash didn’t fall out of the front pocket as he hoisted it over his shoulder. “Any hot knitting circles to attend?”

Amy pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes at him. “Actually, Dave and I are going to dinner and a museum tomorrow.” Her eyes moved away from his and focused on situating her purse, although she was already organized and ready to leave. 

“Oh.” Jake forced that smile back on his face and prayed his voice didn’t betray the thunderstorm raging in his gut. “That sounds like the perfect nerdy date for you, Ames.” 

She laughed at that, her glossy hair shifting behind her as her head fell backwards, and made eye contact with him again. “I’ll have to skip my knitting circle this weekend, but I think they’ll be alright without me until next week.” He chuckled softly and nodded. 

She headed for the elevator. “See you on Monday, Jake.” 

“Yeah, see you.”

He went home that night and drowned his sorrows in a six-pack of Brooklyn Lager and a box of pizza pockets, but even his favorite junk food couldn’t stop him from feeling like the biggest loser on the planet. He had brought this misery upon himself, after all. He was a coward. 

Halfway through his third beer, he realized how pathetic he was being. He was a grown man with a very real, very dangerous job and he needed to get a stronger grip on his emotions. So, Amy was dating Dave. It wasn’t the end of the world; he still got to be her friend, and he loved being Amy’s friend. That was going to have to be enough for him from now on. 

He wallowed in self-induced misery all weekend but when Monday rolled around, he decided he was done throwing himself a pity party. He threw himself into his job with more resolve than ever before, and determinedly ignored the small smiles that randomly blossomed on Amy’s face throughout the day, no doubt remembering something that happened with Perfect Dave on their perfect date. 

When the Fulton Street Four case serendipitously landed on his desk later that week, Jake couldn’t hide his relief. Not only was it a flashy dream case, it was also a great distraction. If he couldn’t get the girl, he could at least fulfill a childhood dream and get his picture taken with a huge pile of stolen cash. 

He gave the case everything he had: badass code names, legendary exit lines and a _freaking_ departmentally-mandated helicopter. However, the glory of solving such a long-dormant, high-profile case wasn’t enough to drown out the sound of Amy telling Gina about her dates with Dave in the break room. He couldn’t quite suppress the sinking feeling in his gut every time he had to hear her giggle over another guy. 

From what Jake could gather from a gossip-hungry Gina and a truly devastated Charles, Dave had been pulling out all the stops for Amy: so far, he’d taken her to a hidden jazz bar in Harlem, a shuffleboard club in Carroll Gardens, and for a romantic walk through the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. They were the perfect dates for Amy and Jake couldn’t help but be begrudgingly happy for her, even if it stung him in the deepest crevice of his heart. He just wished he didn’t respect his new archenemy quite this much. 

He didn’t go in the break room for lunch after that. He didn’t need the daily reminder of his impending life-long loneliness while he tried to enjoy his daily breakfast burrito and orange soda. 

However, his plan to avoid Amy at all costs would prove to be difficult. At the precinct briefing the following week, Captain Holt assigned Jake and Amy to work closely together on an identity theft case, tracking down a notorious perp named Michael Augustine. 

As hard as he tried, Jake couldn’t get the Captain (or Amy) to let him work the case with Charles instead. Truth be told, he would always rather work with her but he didn’t quite trust himself not to say or do something stupid and ruin their relationship for good. He didn’t know what he would do if she weren’t a part of his life in some capacity. 

After the awkward briefing, Amy angrily stormed over to him in the break room. 

“Hey!” She looked confused and Jake hated himself a little more than usual. “Did I do something to you? Are you mad at me? Why are you trying to keep me off this case?”

“Oh, that.” Jake huffed out a deep breath and decided to be completely honest with her for the second time in his life – no goofy accents allowed. “Look, the reason that I didn’t want to work with you is…remember when we were working that case with Dave and I kept trying to talk to you in private?” 

She nodded, her brows furrowed. Her breathing was less frantic and Jake surmised that she was less angry than she had been when she first stormed over to him. That gave him the courage to plough through what he needed to say. 

“Well, I was kind of thinking about…asking you out.” Immediately, a huge weight floated from his shoulders; he’d finally said it. 

Her eyes widened in surprise and she took a small step back, away from him. “Oh. Okay.” 

Trying to save her (and himself) from the overwhelming awkwardness he was sure they were both feeling, he said, “But I know you’re with Dave, and it’s going really well, so I am totally over it. You don’t have to worry about me getting in your way.”

She stared at him, eyes probing his soul. Jake held her eye contact and made a concentrated effort not to fidget with his hands, even though that was all he wanted to do in the moment. He didn’t want her to think he wasn’t being completely sincere. 

Finally, after what felt like forever, she said, “Okay. Thank you for being honest with me.” Her eyes continued to search his face, though with less intensity and more compassion. 

“Really? You’re not weirded out?”

She chuckled. “I mean, I _am_ a little. But I know you, and I know you wouldn’t do anything to make me feel uncomfortable.” 

He countered her relieved smile with his own. “No, I wouldn’t.” 

“Okay, then let’s get started on the case. Augustine won’t know what hit him.” 

Amy confidently strode out of the break room, but she felt her shoulders fall as soon as she reached her desk. So, Jake liked her again and had wanted to ask her out. No big deal. 

_Extremely_ big deal. 

After all her hoping and wishing and waiting after his break-up with Sophia, he had liked her back the entire time and hadn’t said a single word. For a brief moment, Amy wondered what would have happened if Jake had asked her out before Dave had the chance, but then she stopped herself. Jake was right, things with Dave were going really well and he didn’t deserve to be dumped at the first sign of momentum with someone else. No, she owed it to herself to see where things with him could go. She and Jake would always be friends; no crush would ever change that. 

The minute she slid next to him in the backseat of the surveillance van, she could tell the air between them had shifted with the weight of Jake’s admission but she was determined to focus on the work at hand – for the sake of their jobs, and their friendship. Jake seemed to be on the same page, only making eye contact with her when discussing the case and refusing to comment on her appearance as they prepped to follow Augustine into the restaurant. 

When they had trouble getting a table and she felt the case begin to slip between her fingers, Amy made a split-second decision that would alter the course of their night and their relationship – she pretended to be Jake’s fiancée. 

The tactic had worked wonders for them in the past; Jake loved the romance and drama of acting, and they had worked together long enough to build up believable chemistry. But that was before they’d had feelings for each other, or at least before their feelings had been spoken out loud. 

She decided to broach the subject with him while they waited for their table and he deflected with a joke about her sloppy cheek kiss, so she assumed things between them were slowly getting back to normal. 

But when they were sitting across from each other next to Augustine and his sidepiece, Jake’s face lit by candle light and champagne pumping through her bloodstream, Amy realized she didn’t know what their version of normal was anymore. Her relationship with Jake hadn’t been the same since he’d confessed his feelings for her in the precinct parking lot all those months ago. She decided she owed him the same honesty he had left her with earlier that morning in the break room, even if it ruined everything they had both worked so hard to protect. 

So, when Augustine’s ditzy mistress asked her how she knew her ‘fiancé’ was The One, she said the first true thing that came to mind. 

“He makes me laugh.” She fixed him with a look and willed him to understand that the words escaping her lips were Amy’s, not Dora’s. 

He nodded slightly, though she could tell he was taken aback by her honesty. He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. “And, you know, there’s really no one else’s opinion who I care about more than hers, so.” 

He smiled at her and she nodded back at him slowly. Amy felt the carefully-constructed walls between them begin to crumble. For the first time, she wasn’t sure where they stood. Was this friendship, or was it something else? 

Her silent question was answered twenty minutes later when they were almost made by Augustine near the restaurant’s kitchen and Jake’s first instinct to keep their cover was to kiss her.

Amy’s hands floundered in mid-air as her brain struggled to catch up with the rest of her body. Her first traitorous thought was _finally_ before her brain caught up and she realized that she was kissing Jake and not Dave, the guy she was actually dating. Her heart started to race, and not in a romantic way. 

When Jake pulled his lips from hers to explain themselves to Augustine, Amy took several deep breaths and steadied herself. After the thief congratulated them again on their engagement and made his exit from the restaurant, Amy turned to Jake and tried to keep her expression as neutral as possible. She was determined to be a professional. 

Before she could even open her mouth, Jake beat her to the punch. “Hey, I’m sorry if that was totally out of line. That’s just the first thing I could think of to get him off our backs.”

He looked genuinely remorseful and Amy felt the anxiety unclench from her heart, if only for the time being. “It worked, didn’t it? It was the right call.” 

She stuck out her hand to shake his and he took it with a thankful smile, only wincing slightly at the surprising strength of her grip. 

As they rejoined Charles and Rosa in the surveillance van, Amy let Jake explain what had happened and tried to drown out Charles’ squeals of joy as she processed the events from the restaurant. She and Jake had played undercover lovers so many times throughout their partnership and they had never had to do so much as hold hands to be convincing. They could have pretended to look for a place to boink without having to make any sort of physical contact. So why the kiss, and why now? She believed Jake when he said he wasn’t sure why that was the first thing he’d thought to do, but she knew there was something internal that led him there. He might not have understood it, but there had to be something deeper there. 

But when they were waiting for the buyer in the shadows of the park and Jake listed off her favorite post-case comfort meal, Amy realized that no one would ever have her back like Jake Peralta. That moment of realization fueled her next move. 

When the buyer suspiciously eyed them from his waiting spot a few feet away, Amy decided to follow her instincts instead of her brain for the first time in her life.

Under the watchful eye of their perp, she slowly backed Jake into the tree they had been standing next to and ran her fingers gently up and down his arms. 

“Amy, what – “, Jake’s confusion was cut off by the feeling of Amy’s hot breath on his neck. To bystanders, it looked like she was kissing him against the tree, but in reality, her lips were hovering gently above his skin, her face burrowed snugly into his shoulder. They looked like a couple without having to physically commit to the act. 

Amy wasn’t entirely sure where this was coming from, only that it felt like the only thing to do. Some invisible string seemed to pull her towards Jake. 

She felt Jake’s hands tighten around her waist, holding on to her for dear life. As she moved her mouth up his neck towards his ear lobe, she heard his breath hitch in his throat. As her lips reached his ear, the buyer seemed satisfied enough with their performance and made the drop they had been waiting for. Amy quickly jumped into action, ripping herself from Jake and grabbing her gun in one swift motion. 

Jake was stunned, the bark of the tree digging into his back, as Amy trained her gun on the buyer. Dazed, he followed suit, but he couldn’t stop looking at the woman next to him as she sped through the Miranda Rights. At least she looked as rattled as he felt. He would never be able to forget the feeling of Amy’s hot breath hovering over his sensitive ear lobe for as long as he lived. It was probably the hottest moment of his life, and there had been no kissing whatsoever. He had dreamt about an aggressive and forward Amy more nights than he would admit to under oath, but actually experiencing it for himself was another thing entirely. 

He couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the moment was over, even though they’d caught the bad guy. He knew he would never be that close to her again and it killed him. There was a faraway look in her eye and a scrunch in her brow as she cuffed the buyer; for a moment, Jake swore that she looked as disappointed as he did, but he chalked it up to wishful thinking. 

They both went home that night and tried not to think about the feeling of their lips melded together, or how their bodies had intertwined perfectly against the tree. 

The next morning when Captain Holt announced his departure from the Nine-Nine, Amy couldn’t help but feel like karma had caught up to her. Was the universe punishing her for kissing Jake while she was with Dave? She felt her lips moving and heard her voice shouting “What the hell?!” but her brain was buzzing and she couldn’t think straight. 

She finally had a Captain she respected and he was being cruelly ripped away from her by Wuntch. He was her mentor, her rabbi – who would take the time to remind her to sit up straight now? Devastated, Amy retreated to the quiet of the evidence lock-up to text Dave. He had been a cop for a long time and he would know exactly what to say. She needed someone to vent to, someone who would tell her everything would be fine. 

_Captain Holt just got transferred to Public Relations! Can you believe that?!_

Not a moment later, her phone chimed with Dave’s response:

_Wow, sounds like a great promotion! Congratulate him for me!_

Amy’s heart sank and her blood begin to boil. He didn’t get it, didn’t understand how devastating this was for her and the entire precinct. Amy had told Dave all about their battles with Wuntch, so the idea that Dave would think this move was something Holt wanted threw her into a silent rage. 

She and Dave hadn’t been dating for long, they hadn’t even talked about exclusivity yet, but he had always been such a good listener. However, the more Amy thought back to their short time together, she began to see the cracks in the relationship that had been invisible to her until now. 

Dave was a hard man to pin down but Amy always understood; she was practically chained to her desk as well, and his success was what had drawn her to him in the first place. When they did manage to see each other, Dave always asked about her day and seemed genuinely interested in what she had to say. Now that she thought about it, though, they only talked about her for a few minutes before moving along to chat about Dave’s latest exploits in the field. When Amy had joyfully shared with him her success with the Magnet school field trip, he had smiled with her, ordered her a celebratory drink, and said it reminded him of the time he saved a group of school kids from a pipe bomb before launching into a long-winded story that took over the rest of their dinner. 

The fact that Dave’s first thought upon hearing Holt’s fate was for his career advancement and not Amy’s feelings was the last straw. Dave wasn’t a bad guy, he just needed someone to idolize him as much as he idolized himself. Amy needed someone who understood her, who would put her feelings first, and she knew now that Dave would never be that guy. 

Just as she finished pressing send on a text to Dave, she heard the door to the evidence lock-up open and shut quietly. She shouldn’t have been surprised to see Jake stride into the dark room. 

“Hey, I thought I might find you in here,” he said, smiling at her sadly. “How are you holding up?”

Amy stared at him as the lightbulb finally illuminated in her head. Jake understood her, he always had. He had seen her at her worst and her weirdest, he knew her Polish take-out order by heart, and his first thought upon hearing Holt’s fate was for her and how she would be handling the news. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before – it had been right in front of her nose the entire time. She had been so caught up in trying to read him that she hadn’t thought to look for the signs he’d been throwing her way. 

Amy beamed at him, which only proved to confuse Jake. “Why are you smiling? I thought you would be devastated, you’re basically in love with Holt.” His face wrinkled in the way she always secretly thought was cute and her smile only grew. She couldn’t hold it in any longer. 

“I really like you.” 

Jake’s wrinkled confusion was quickly replaced with a look that she could only describe as pure _awe_. “What?” 

“I really like you and I can’t pretend I don’t anymore. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

He stared at her, almost like he was waiting for her to yell “Psych!” but Amy only continued to watch him for any sort of positive reaction, feeling her smile slip as he paused. “What about Dave? I thought things were going so well.”

“Dave’s great, but I don’t think it’s going to work out. I’m breaking up with him tonight, I just texted him.” She reached for his hand and she felt him squeeze right back. “Jake, I want to be with you.”

He hardly waited for her to finish saying the words before he said, “I want to be with you too.” They both laughed breathlessly and his empty hand grabbed hers and brought it up to his flannel-covered heart. Jake started to lean down to kiss her before he stopped himself. “I don’t want to kiss you while you’re with someone. When we finally do this _for realz_ , I want to make sure we do it the right way. I’m going to blow your mind, Santiago.” 

A warmth began to spread through her body, from her toes to the tips of her ears. She felt so whole, like she’d been missing him her whole life. Amy could have cried. “Okay. Let’s talk tomorrow.”

When they finally meet up in the evidence lock-up the next morning and kiss _for realz_ , it sufficiently blows both of their minds.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos give me life and keep me going. 
> 
> Come and yell with me about these nerds on tumblr @santiagoswagger!


End file.
